This is true not
only of popular religious opinions, but of any other set of opinions
whatever; and for the simple reason that most people do not hold their
opinions as the result of any study, of any investigation, because they
have seriously tried to find out what is true, and have become
convinced that this, and not that, represents the reality of things.
Let us note for a moment and I do this rather to clear the way than
because I consider it of any very great importance how it is that the
great majority of people come by the religious opinions which they
happen to hold. I suppose it is true in thousands of cases that a man
or a woman is in this church rather than that merely as the result of
inheritance and childhood training. People inherit their religious
ideas. They are taught certain things in their childhood, they have
accepted them perhaps without any sort of question; and so they are
where they happen to be to-day. If you stop and think of it for just a
moment, you will see that this may be all right as a starting-point,
but is not quite an adequate reason why we should hold permanently, and
throughout our lives, a particular set of ideas. If all of us were to
accept opinions in this sort of fashion, and never put them behind us
or make any change, where would the growth of the world be? How would
it be possible for one generation to make a little advance on that
which preceded it, so that we could speak of the progress of mankind?
Then, when persons do make up their minds to change, to leave one
church and go to another, it is not an uncommon thing for them simply
to select a particular place of worship or a special organization for
no better reason than that they happen to like it, to be attracted to
it for some superficial cause.
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